ALMATY, Kazakstan -- With a landmass nearly seven times the size of California, the former Soviet republic Kazakstan would seem unfairly labeled a small country.But sandwiched as it is between the eastern giants of Russia and China, courted by Islamic powers and coveted for its natural wealth by big oil money in the West, Kazakstan's strategy in defining relations with its powerful friends and neighbors has been to maintain a humble profile.And as President Nursultan Nazarbayev travels across the United States this week in search of stronger backing from Washington and deeper investment by U.S. business, he will be presenting his newly independent homeland as a quiet haven in the heart of a region reeling with instability, conflict and political change.

NORTH EAST - Just like most 8-year-old girls, Julia loves baking brownies, talking on the phone and singing along with Britney Spears' latest CD. But Julia is not an average 8-year-old. She experienced these small pleasures last summer with an enthusiasm and appreciation most American children do not. This is because Julia was one of several orphans brought from Kazakstan to the United States to live in an American home for six weeks - her only family experience. "She came with just the clothes on her back," said Janet Nelson, the girl's host-mother.

MOSCOW - Offering a multinational display of bravura, the three-man crew of the Soyuz space capsule met with the news media yesterday and shrugged off the notion that their steep plunge to Earth in a malfunctioning spaceship Sunday was riskier than any other weekend drive. The two U.S. astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut, clad in identical blue coveralls, spent 40 minutes talking about the sweet smell of Kazakstan earth after 5 1/2 months in space, the strangeness of slithering out of their capsule with muscles that had forgotten gravity and the joy of seeing their wives.

MOSCOW - Offering a multinational display of bravura, the three-man crew of the Soyuz space capsule met with the news media yesterday and shrugged off the notion that their steep plunge to Earth in a malfunctioning spaceship Sunday was riskier than any other weekend drive. The two U.S. astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut, clad in identical blue coveralls, spent 40 minutes talking about the sweet smell of Kazakstan earth after 5 1/2 months in space, the strangeness of slithering out of their capsule with muscles that had forgotten gravity and the joy of seeing their wives.

SOHREN, Germany - Emmi Schleicher arrived in Germany from her native Kazakstan six years ago and thought she had finally gone home to the land her ancestors left over two centuries before. Since then, she has learned a much more painful lesson.As an ethnic German in Kazakstan, she said, she faced nationalist hostility among Kazaks who called her a foreigner. Now she confronts another kind of animosity from Germans who do not accept her as a German and who accuse her and others like her of receiving social benefits they do not deserve.

SHYMKENT, Kazakstan -- While Americans slept early yesterday, hundreds of paratroopers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, led by a four-star Marine general, dropped into this remote but potentially critical part of the world almost 8,000 miles from their base in North Carolina.The U.S. airborne troops' landing on this dusty stretch of Central Asia yesterday marked the first military exercise ever with Russia and troops of former Soviet republics.Five hundred troops from the 82nd Airborne Division joined 40 members of the Central Asian Battalion -- made up of forces from, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan -- in the paratroop drop to begin a six-day training exercise to prepare for future peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- The Balkans. For the better part of a century that phrase has been a synonym for endless varieties of chaos.It evokes irreconcilable differences over religion, simmering ethnic antipathies and a volatile environment in which people live as implacable enemies of one another for generation after generation. To an outsider, most of these people seem very similar, but their lives are in turmoil because they have come to perceive their differences as so vast.The conflicts which raged through the Balkan Peninsula in 1912 and 1913 touched off World War I, and as the wreckage of what was once Yugoslavia attests, sentiments haven't cooled much since then.

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan -- Here's a geography quiz. In what region of the world did Alexander the Great score great victories, the Silk Road flourish, Islam produce some of its most renowned scholars and Tamerlane build the fabled monuments of Samarkand?Hint: Russia and Britain staged their 19th-century ''Great Game'' of spies and skirmishes across this region's forbidding deserts and mountains.Don't feel bad if you can't come up with a name. This region is just emerging from 70 years of Rip Van Winkle-like isolation from the world under Soviet rule.

LONDON -- The enemy's enemy, if hardly a bosom friend, at least deserves another look. America has, in effect, ''tilted'' in favor of the faction of Iraqi Kurds that has been propped up by Iran. It is a good time to review Washington's deep antagonism for Iran.The U.S. policy of dual containment of both Iran and Iraq has never looked more insupportable. Not a single allied government has been prepared to back Washington by cutting its economic links with Tehran.Why is Washington paying this price?

ALMATY, Kazakstan -- With a landmass nearly seven times the size of California, the former Soviet republic Kazakstan would seem unfairly labeled a small country.But sandwiched as it is between the eastern giants of Russia and China, courted by Islamic powers and coveted for its natural wealth by big oil money in the West, Kazakstan's strategy in defining relations with its powerful friends and neighbors has been to maintain a humble profile.And as President Nursultan Nazarbayev travels across the United States this week in search of stronger backing from Washington and deeper investment by U.S. business, he will be presenting his newly independent homeland as a quiet haven in the heart of a region reeling with instability, conflict and political change.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- The Balkans. For the better part of a century that phrase has been a synonym for endless varieties of chaos.It evokes irreconcilable differences over religion, simmering ethnic antipathies and a volatile environment in which people live as implacable enemies of one another for generation after generation. To an outsider, most of these people seem very similar, but their lives are in turmoil because they have come to perceive their differences as so vast.The conflicts which raged through the Balkan Peninsula in 1912 and 1913 touched off World War I, and as the wreckage of what was once Yugoslavia attests, sentiments haven't cooled much since then.

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan -- Here's a geography quiz. In what region of the world did Alexander the Great score great victories, the Silk Road flourish, Islam produce some of its most renowned scholars and Tamerlane build the fabled monuments of Samarkand?Hint: Russia and Britain staged their 19th-century ''Great Game'' of spies and skirmishes across this region's forbidding deserts and mountains.Don't feel bad if you can't come up with a name. This region is just emerging from 70 years of Rip Van Winkle-like isolation from the world under Soviet rule.

SHYMKENT, Kazakstan -- While Americans slept early yesterday, hundreds of paratroopers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, led by a four-star Marine general, dropped into this remote but potentially critical part of the world almost 8,000 miles from their base in North Carolina.The U.S. airborne troops' landing on this dusty stretch of Central Asia yesterday marked the first military exercise ever with Russia and troops of former Soviet republics.Five hundred troops from the 82nd Airborne Division joined 40 members of the Central Asian Battalion -- made up of forces from, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan -- in the paratroop drop to begin a six-day training exercise to prepare for future peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.

When Alan Sherman recruits a blue-chipper for his team, he spares no ammunition.He touts his university's top-notch facilities, the high level of competition, the great coaching and the opportunity to play alongside such masters of the game as William "The Exterminator" Morrison, a legend from the parks of New York.If the prospect lives abroad, no problem. Sherman's scholarship players have come from Russia, Sri Lanka and Kazakstan. Arriving soon: identical twins from Belarus.So perhaps it's not surprising that Sherman has assembled something of a dream team.

By Susan Milligan and Susan Milligan,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | June 6, 1996

ALMATY, Kazakstan -- You could think of it as "The Guiding Light" with a political subtext.Lydia and Ermek are struggling with a mixed marriage: She's ethnic Russian; he's Kazak.They live in a one-room apartment in this newly independent nation, trying to make ends meet with the uncertain profits from Ermek's news kiosk.Gleb and Camilla, another Russian-Kazak couple, also are feeling the pressure. Gleb is being hassled by unsavory types who want him to pay protection money from the proceeds of his cafe.

NORTH EAST - Just like most 8-year-old girls, Julia loves baking brownies, talking on the phone and singing along with Britney Spears' latest CD. But Julia is not an average 8-year-old. She experienced these small pleasures last summer with an enthusiasm and appreciation most American children do not. This is because Julia was one of several orphans brought from Kazakstan to the United States to live in an American home for six weeks - her only family experience. "She came with just the clothes on her back," said Janet Nelson, the girl's host-mother.

LONDON -- The enemy's enemy, if hardly a bosom friend, at least deserves another look. America has, in effect, ''tilted'' in favor of the faction of Iraqi Kurds that has been propped up by Iran. It is a good time to review Washington's deep antagonism for Iran.The U.S. policy of dual containment of both Iran and Iraq has never looked more insupportable. Not a single allied government has been prepared to back Washington by cutting its economic links with Tehran.Why is Washington paying this price?

By Susan Milligan and Susan Milligan,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | June 6, 1996

ALMATY, Kazakstan -- You could think of it as "The Guiding Light" with a political subtext.Lydia and Ermek are struggling with a mixed marriage: She's ethnic Russian; he's Kazak.They live in a one-room apartment in this newly independent nation, trying to make ends meet with the uncertain profits from Ermek's news kiosk.Gleb and Camilla, another Russian-Kazak couple, also are feeling the pressure. Gleb is being hassled by unsavory types who want him to pay protection money from the proceeds of his cafe.